This was stupid. He felt like he was six years old again wrestling with his mom while she tried to calm him in the doctor’s office before a booster shot he was sure would be the death of him. Except if he wrestled with Lee, they’d probably get themselves thrown out of this stupid clinic.
“How much longer do we have to wait?” He hissed at Lee, flipping through an outdated home improvement magazine for the eighteenth time.
“Ten more minutes,” Lee replied patiently, “we got lucky today, there aren’t a lot of people here.” It really was a miracle. Like all of the stars had aligned just to piss Gabriel off and force him to go to this stupid doctor.
“The bill’s gonna be insane,” Gabriel predicted, “I’ll probably have to sell a kidney to pay it.” Actually, he’d been so miserably lax in regular check-ups for pretty much anything, he really had no idea how much it was going to cost.
“We’ll see what happens.” Lee was calm, too calm, how did he do it? As far as Gabriel was concerned doctors were the devil.
“Gabriel?” A young brunette woman called his name from the door leading back into the exam rooms, she smiled at him when he got up from the chair.
“Ready for me?” He asked, giving Lee a sidelong glance. It looked like the other hunter was convinced Gabriel would jump out a window the first chance he got, because he was already standing and intent on joining Gabriel for his checkup.
“Yes, come with me and we’ll get the basic stuff done so you can see the doctor.” The brunette smiled at him, exactly the opposite kind of person he expected to be working here. Gabriel had a twisted vision of hairy Russian women with thick necks and unibrow scowls.
Lee eyed Gabriel critically, “you going to go if I stay here?” He asked, voice low.
“I’m already in the building. Not like there’s anywhere for me to run since you’ve got the car keys,” he replied testily. Even Gabriel knew he sounded petulant, but he just couldn’t help himself today.
Lee sat back down, “I'll wait here.”
The first steps to see a doctor felt so mundane, routine, weight, height, everything was going fine until they got to temperature. He had always been relatively normal, in the normal range at least, but he knew something was wrong when she scowled at the thermometer.
“Do you feel cold?” She asked, continuing to glare at the thermometer as if it had committed some kind of heinous crime.
“No,” he said, “I feel just fine. Better than fine.” He was lying about that second part, but he honestly wanted to just get this bullshit over with.
She gave him a look like she didn't believe him, “we can't help you if you're not honest,” she replied, taking his blood pressure, “besides, numbers don't lie. Your body temperature is low and your blood pressure is very low, I'm surprised you haven't passed out.” She looked very surprised, “I'm going to get the doctor.”
“I’m a little tired, but I swear I’m fine,” he insisted, just glad Lee wasn’t there to make it into an even bigger issue.
She was already gone by the time he managed to finish his sentence, apparently she thought something was wrong, he still disagreed. So what if his blood pressure and temperature were low?
It wasn't long before a different woman came in. She was older, her red hair starting to grey a little, but she had kind eyes, that was the first thing he noticed.
“Hello Gabriel, I'm Dr. Martin.” She held out her hand to him.
“Doc Martin?” He quipped, “listen, before we start, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just here because I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. So you don’t need to do any crazy tests or stick me with needles, okay?” Gabriel went on, giving her his best Clark Gable smile.
She smiled back, “while I would like to agree with you I'm afraid that I need to run some blood tests. Your blood pressure worries me more than your temperature. I see she skipped taking your heart rate, let me check that first.”
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Ugh. Why wouldn’t anyone believe him? Did he look like death warmed over? Was there an undertaker stalking him with a measuring tape? Or the Grimm reaper sharpening a comically large scythe?
“I never get sick.” Gabriel protested, “my heart rate’s just fine.”
She ignored him, hunting for the pulse in his wrist instead. He waited ten seconds. Then twenty. Then, when she looked back up at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read, he got an odd sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
“It's on the low side of healthy,” she told him bluntly, “but I don’t think we need to worry. For now.” She looked him over, “so, how have you been feeling lately? Be honest, because I can't help you if you don’t help me out here.”
Gabriel shifted on the paper-covered table, not sure exactly how to say it, “I’m sleeping a lot. My eyes are sensitive. I guess. No pain, though. Nothing’s sore. I guess I’ve been a little moody lately, but that’s just stress from work…” he trailed off, not really sure he wanted to tell her about the raw steak cravings.
“Well, let's get some blood drawn, it might be anemia, but we’ll know more when we get the results back.”
He could handle slimy ghoul guts, and picking up the trail of dismembered parts left behind by a voracious werewolf, didn’t even bat an eye at the dessicated semi-human remains of monsters of all shapes and sizes. It was a part of the daily routine. Get up, have some coffee, figure out what he was hunting for the week, and collect a paycheck. Yet somehow a perfectly clean doctor’s office, a pleasant enough doctor just doing her job, and the anti-septic tubes for drawing blood staring back at him with those little globs of yellow wax (or whatever) staring back at him chilled Gabriel to his bones. He didn’t want his blood drawn. A little voice in his mind told him it was practically theft. He needed every last drop of it, in his body, safe from that needle getting ever closer to his poor arm.
Then, somehow, he realized how insane that was. He’d had blood drawn before. It would be fine. It would. Gabriel clenched his teeth, and batted that annoying little voice away, the one that kept telling him he should run out the door right now and try his luck getting back to the office on foot.
She was good, he had to admit that, didn't even hardly feel the needle go in. It took a little longer than usual to fill the tube but he figured that was due to the low blood pressure.
“There, done, wasn't so bad, was it?” Her gloves snapped as she pulled them off, “I'm going to put a rush on this at the lab but I took an extra one so I could check myself so I can have some possible answers for you by the end of the day. It won't be a for sure diagnosis, just opinion, alright? I want the lab to go through it fully so we know for sure.”
“You can do that?” He asked dumbly, “like, in just a day?” Wow. Okay, maybe he’d been making this whole thing a way bigger issue than it really was. “That’d be good,” he added, trying to somehow recover from feeling foolish.
She smiled, “in the meantime, eat and rest, I would suggest hot foods, like soup, and take a hot shower or bath. I'll call you tonight and let you know if I find anything and about how long the lab results will take.”
“Thanks.” Not that he thought there was anything wrong with him, but at least he could give everyone actual written evidence that he was perfectly fine. For all he knew, it might even be bad allergies.
After they’d taken care of the visitation bill and Gabriel was safely out in the car with Lee, they both noticed two things: they’d left their cell phones in Lee’s jeep, and between them they had about a dozen missed calls.
“What the hell, Louise?” Gabriel grumbled to himself. “Why doesn’t she ever leave voicemails?”
“She knows we don't listen to them.” He replied, shaking his head at his phone, “I'm going to give her a call, give me a minute.” He walked away from the jeep, bringing the phone to his ear.
“Everything alright?” Gabriel shouted through the passenger window.
“Reception’s bad,” Lee called back, hanging up. “I’ll just drop you off and meet up with her to help-“ he paused, “-clean up that storage bay we’re still renting.”
Gabriel looked back at him skeptically, “alright, but tomorrow we’ve got to have a meeting, so hurry it up.”
“Are you going to be awake for the meeting this time?”
It was tempting to just flip Lee the bird, but Gabriel knew that was just his shitty mood trying to take it out on him. Lee was just being a good friend, despite Gabriel’s best efforts to fight him every step of the way.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there bright and early. I’ll even bring jelly donuts. Happy?”
Lee smiled at him, “yes, you know we worry about you, right?” He shook his head, “I'll drive by and you jump out, that way I don't have to actually stop.” He was teasing, Gabriel knew it, but still gave him a look that said, ‘I'm going to kill you if you even try it.’
Lee broke into a smile, “what? You give me grief all week and now you can’t take a joke?”
“Just drive.”